Member

I feel like Insomniac was a missed opportunity for Microsoft. Sunset Overdrive was fantastic and should have been the start of a fruitful relationship regardless of sales. But now between Ratchet and Spider-Man, IG is back to being a Sony studio as far as consoles are considered.

I truly believe if they could go back in time after seeing how their other exclusives turned out they would sign Insomniac up for another project. I still think the reason the let Insomniac go was that SO was their first kinda flop this gen, all their launch games sold decently to warrant a sequel, Titanfall sold a shit ton then you had SO which just.. flopped. At that point in time coming off huge hits like Titanfall and SO flopping, it's hard to justify funding a sequel / new game at that point.

Mehmber

I truly believe if they could go back in time after seeing how their other exclusives turned out they would sign Insomniac up for another project. I still think the reason the let Insomniac go was that SO was their first kinda flop this gen, all their launch games sold decently to warrant a sequel, Titanfall sold a shit ton then you had SO which just.. flopped. At that point in time coming off huge hits like Titanfall and SO flopping, it's hard to justify funding a sequel / new game at that point.

Yeah, I mean it's definitely easier to criticize now. I don't think anyone expected Ratchet PS4 to be as big of a success as it was (series seemed to be declining in popularity) so it probably appeared as if Insomniac would be available for a later Xbox project if they didn't agree on something NOW. But the strong R&C sales probably helped get the Marvel deal done and the rest was history.

Member

I know I was making jokes last year and a few times this year that there must be a reason that Splinter Cell:Blacklist was still not a BC title. The theorizing was they were holding it back to offer as a pre order gift or a GWG offer.

There was also this gaf thread from last year where Michael Ironside was spotted at Ubi

To throw a date on this: I did see Ironside and one his daughters at the TO studio last summer. This was just good timing, as I was there on other business.
I have two sources who worked on the set of The Space Between (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4682922/), which was shooting in TO. Ironside mentioned he was working on a new Splinter Cell. One source is someone I trust, the other is an acquaintance by degrees.

The movie shoot overlapped the same week as my encounter. As I understand it, he was here for the movie first and worked in the studio visit while in town.
None of us is bound by NDA over this, given our connections and circumstances, but it still feels shady to talk about since it's not official. I was surprised I hadn't seen this news from someone else by now, to be honest.

I know UbiSoft TO has a wonderful new mocap studio. While I did express disappointment it wasn't shown at E3, this thing could be early along. I haven't seen actual in-game assets or production assets for myself (like the Syndicate extra timeline story). I don't know who is making it. I know other dev studios have used the mocap studio.

Remember Ubisoft studios collaborate often. The TO studio contributed content to Watch_Dogs 2, and For Honor also takes up a chunk there. I'd like to say this was another TO take on the franchise, but I will not until I know more.

Member

Yeah, I mean it's definitely easier to criticize now. I don't think anyone expected Ratchet PS4 to be as big of a success as it was (series seemed to be declining in popularity) so it probably appeared as if Insomniac would be available for a later Xbox project if they didn't agree on something NOW. But the strong R&C sales probably helped get the Marvel deal done and the rest was history.

I was referring to xbox exclusives But yeah, Ratchet too (I haven't played it but it's a high meta & well liked)

QB did nothing, Halo was a massive drop as was Gears, Recore did nothing, Ryse sequel broke down half way etc. Plus they had Scalebound etc in the works back in 2014 aswell. MCC was broken. Mainline Forza is down too I believe. It's easy to say they should have funded a sequel to SO but back then I don't think it was quite as clear as it is now, if they knew the rest of their exclusives would do nothing / would be down massively I truly believe they would have signed Insomniac up again.

SO sales didn't exactly set the world on fire but in hindsight they weren't too bad compared to what came later and has the most potential for a sequel out of any exclusive IMO, also it's meta is up there with their pillar franchises aswell. By the time they knew how the rest of the exclusives turned out, Sony had already locked up Insomniac.

Member

Few others actually. First-party games aren't the ones who define the success or doom of a videogame, but here on GAF this is a widespread belief because it's one of the differences between Sony and MS. MS is doing the right thing to make the third-party games best on its consumer-friendly platform. If they can get the windows store (pc part for that matter) right then they will be a incredible strong position. I'm still baffled that people will buy anything from Sony when they have so much anti-consumer policies, especially with the growth of PC market.

What you think in 3 years they can jettison everything already in the pipeline and make loads of new stuff instead, or would even want to?

LOL

Whatever is truly new and coming from Spencer's direction will be made apparent over the next 5 years. And no, I don't believe Spencer was controlling much game wise during Mattricks reign, as already stated.

Making loads of new stuff seems to be working pretty well for Sony. Except they don't jettison, they keep pilling the games on. You'll get them when you get them, but you will most likely get them. TLG has showed it.

Do you know who actually jettisons games and studios when they desperately need them? You guessed it, Microsoft. 3 years is PLENTY of time to have a bunch of stuff at least ready to be announced. With 2 more years left to fully develop. There will be no excuse for Spencer if Microsoft pulls another E3 2015 or 16.

Member

Yeah, I mean it's definitely easier to criticize now. I don't think anyone expected Ratchet PS4 to be as big of a success as it was (series seemed to be declining in popularity) so it probably appeared as if Insomniac would be available for a later Xbox project if they didn't agree on something NOW. But the strong R&C sales probably helped get the Marvel deal done and the rest was history.

Member

I feel like Insomniac was a missed opportunity for Microsoft. Sunset Overdrive was fantastic and should have been the start of a fruitful relationship regardless of sales. But now between Ratchet and Spider-Man, IG is back to being a Sony studio as far as consoles are considered.

Who would develop it, though? They canceled Rare's version and all their studios are busy with more popular IPs. My choice: Starbreeze. Their Syndicate was a warmup. (And yes, I know most of the team went to MachineGames but a guy can dream)

Junior Member

What you think in 3 years they can jettison everything already in the pipeline and make loads of new stuff instead, or would even want to?

LOL

Whatever is truly new and coming from Spencer's direction will be made apparent over the next 5 years. And no, I don't believe Spencer was controlling much game wise during Mattricks reign, as already stated.

Member

Who would develop it, though? They canceled Rare's version and all their studios are busy with more popular IPs. My choice: Starbreeze. Their Syndicate was a warmup. (And yes, I know most of the team went to MachineGames but a guy can dream)

Member

Oh don't get me wrong, I think are killing on everything else. Hardware, features, policies. But they are failing monumentally on what matters the most, which is infuriating. To me it negates all the goods things they're doing. If things stay like this, the competition will always have a way more attractive box to me even with worse graphics, shitty network and anti-consumer practices.

I honestly think MS should put Fable to bed and create something else. I can never see that series be successful again, no matter who helms it. Regarding the RPG space, MS have an opportunity to really let loose and build something open world in nature, it's definitely a a genre they lack in and would would go a long way to proving their mettle to the hardcore audience.

Member

Making loads of new stuff seems to be working pretty well for Sony. Except they don't jettison, they keep pilling the games on. You'll get them when you get them, but you will most likely get them. TLG has showed it.

Do you know who actually jettisons games and studios when they desperately need them? You guessed it, Microsoft. 3 years is PLENTY of time to have a bunch of stuff at least ready to be announced. With 2 more years left to fully develop. There will be no excuse for Spencer if Microsoft pulls another E3 2015 or 16.

No, Sony haven't made or released loads more AAA games at all. They are starting to warm up now but the first couple of years was pretty weak. And they have been helped out by getting some 3rd party games which haven't released on Xbox.

Granted their situation with studios is better than Microsoft's but let's not pretend Sony are pumping out a new Mona Lisa every other month because they aren't.

Huh, I guess it does, just enabling FPS style gameplay as well. That's not a bad idea. Although, this wouldn't be a game with an achievement for killing no one, it's supposed to have action as well. At least how I imagined it.

Who would develop it, though? They canceled Rare's version and all their studios are busy with more popular IPs. My choice: Starbreeze. Their Syndicate was a warmup. (And yes, I know most of the team went to MachineGames but a guy can dream)

Didn't know Rare had a PD game in the works for this gen at all. Tbh, they haven't touched fps/action games in a long time, so I'd be happier with someone else developing it.

But as you said, who would develop it? I haven't played the Syndicate, but it looks like they could be up for it (if they still are enough to make a AAA game). Sad thing is I don't know of anyone who would develop a great AAA IP for MS anymore. I wouldn't have my hopes up for a great new AAA IP on Xbox in a long time. I feel their budget is just too strained atm, and great dev studios available are too few.

Edit: Playground games have opened a new studio, but it's an open world game and not necessarily an Xbox exclusive. Although it may not be a new IP at all.

Member

At that point, what's the creative value in retaining the Perfect Dark name? That world and its characters aren't particularly compelling, at least in my opinion. I recognize that there may be some marginal business justification for calling it "Perfect Dark," but if Microsoft wanted to make a cyberpunk immersive sim, I'd rather see them build a new IP.

Member

Who would develop it, though? They canceled Rare's version and all their studios are busy with more popular IPs. My choice: Starbreeze. Their Syndicate was a warmup. (And yes, I know most of the team went to MachineGames but a guy can dream)

Get Human Head on development. They were working on Prey 2 before Bethesda shitcanned it with their shady business practices. It was already a game about a bounty Hunter with gadgets and parkour, so those ideas could be easily reworked into a secret agent action game. Would be a good fit for Perfect Dark IMO.

I don't particularly like either of your suggestions but I guess they're referencing things I don't understand. I would say "Back from the dead", due to both the word 'phantom', and the fact this IP was resurrected after decade + change of dormancy.

I don't particularly like either of your suggestions but I guess they're referencing things I don't understand. I would say "Back from the dead", due to both the word 'phantom', and the fact this IP was resurrected after decade + change of dormancy.

Member

No, Sony haven't made or released loads more AAA games at all. They are starting to warm up now but the first couple of years was pretty weak. And they have been helped out by getting some 3rd party games which haven't released on Xbox.

Granted their situation with studios is better than Microsoft's but let's not pretend Sony are pumping out a new Mona Lisa every other month because they aren't.

You're being very selective by limiting the output to "Sony" and "AAA". I don't care about Sony or big budgets, I care about quality exclusive games I can't play anywhere else. It's such a cop-out to limit the discussion to games Sony does internally, or to blockbuster titles as if smaller or niche games didn't count. The PS4 does have loads more released AND announced exclusive games (I include titles that also come out on PC in this definition of "exclusive") than XBO, in both quantity and critical reception. It's not even close. The PS4 is not warming up, it's at full steam right now.

Member

You're being very selective by limiting the output to "Sony" and "AAA". I don't care about Sony or big budgets, I care about quality exclusive games I can't play anywhere else. It's such a cop-out to limit the discussion to games Sony does internally, or to blockbuster titles as if smaller or niche games didn't count. The PS4 does have loads more released AND announced exclusive games (I include titles that also come out on PC in this definition of "exclusive") than XBO, in both quantity and critical reception. It's not even close. The PS4 is not warming up, it's at full steam right now.

Well you want to make your mind up with what argument you are trying to make. We were talking about Microsoft's 1st party output, which is the topic of the thread. Naturally then, the only fair comparison to make is Sony's actual output too. If you want to add further qualifiers in order to support your argument then clearly it's not a very good one.

Microsoft have plenty of room to improve we all know this, but it isn't going to happen overnight. This gen they have been releasing about 4 big games a year, plus one or two smaller things, I'm not seeing Sony do much more, if at all. If you add all the 3rd party games then sure, they have more exclusives. But that isn't a fair comparison of platform holder output.

Banned

You're being very selective by limiting the output to "Sony" and "AAA". I don't care about Sony or big budgets, I care about quality exclusive games I can't play anywhere else. It's such a cop-out to limit the discussion to games Sony does internally, or to blockbuster titles as if smaller or niche games didn't count. The PS4 does have loads more released AND announced exclusive games (I include titles that also come out on PC in this definition of "exclusive") than XBO, in both quantity and critical reception. It's not even close. The PS4 is not warming up, it's at full steam right now.

Member

Well you want to make your mind up with what argument you are trying to make. We were talking about Microsoft's 1st party output, which is the topic of the thread. Naturally then, the only fair comparison to make is Sony's actual output too. If you want to add further qualifiers in order to support your argument then clearly it's not a very good one.

Microsoft have plenty of room to improve we all know this, but it isn't going to happen overnight. This gen they have been releasing about 4 big games a year, plus one or two smaller things, I'm not seeing Sony do much more, if at all. If you add all the 3rd party games then sure, they have more exclusives. But that isn't a fair comparison of platform holder output.

How long do they need dude? I am not having a go at you here, They have been in the gaming business for a while now! I know the hype or talk at the moment is about Scorpio but they have been far too quiet on the most important aspect, the games, considering this with the announcement of Scalebound being cancelled, you would think they would of given the fans something, a little tease or showing of a game but no, fuck all. UI Updates, backwards compatibility games, controllers and now a mid gen console upgrade. I have seen other first parties absolutely slaughtered in the past by fans and. media for less.

It's easy to misinterpret the "Xbox has no games" thing going on at the moment, of course they have games, I get the feeling it is what little or what they actually have to offer from a first party perspective that some people have a problem with or are sick of. The predictability of it all.

From a personal point of view I don't want them to go "here you are, some Gears story DLC, a new Forza and a Halo tease" at E3 as the majority of what new stuff they have to say.

Here is a question for those in the thread, when was the last time Microsoft genuinely shocked you or the press felt it too in a real positive sense with a new gaming announcement ? Gears of War for 360 was the last time for me.

Member

They pulled in the oars half way through last gen didn't they. Then the start of this one was a shambles for many reasons. But it's unrealistic to expect Spencer to have made major changes or additions in 3 years, that's all I'm saying.

If some new stuff doesn't start landing in the next years then sure, critique away. But even then they aren;t going to stop making their tried and tested stuff, it needs to be a few more besides those.

Member

Microsoft's problem right now is creating excitement around their first party games/announcements. Back in the early days of the 360, almost every major release they put out did well. In 2006 they had Gears of War which was a generation defining game, Viva Pinata turned into a 4 game franchise with a TV show. 2007 had Crackdown prove it was more than just a way to get into the Halo 3 beta, Forza 2 started the series transition into a main IP for them, Halo 3 was, of course, huge, and to cap it off they released Mass Effect as their November release. Maybe part of it came from the 360 having such a positive mindshare (despite the RROD), but it seems none of their recent efforts have been able to catch on in a way their early 360 stuff did, with a few exceptions.

Here is a question for those in the thread, when was the last time Microsoft genuinely shocked you or the press felt it too in a real positive sense with a new gaming announcement ? Gears of War for 360 was the last time for me.

A continuation of the established AAA tentpoles that made 360 strong, a significant investment in new AAA IPs that have potential to be part of any console's next-gen tentpoles, and a broad array of fresh, smaller digital IPs.

Maybe Phil will return to form what he had under Mattrick in the next two years, but right the actions he's taken in the past two years isn't showing for it.

Pound-for-pound, if you focus on the quantity of AAA games MS ships annually on-average, they're not inferior to other publishers. I've not been a fan of their E3 conferences in the past 2 years but still they've never had major issues in terms of shipping software, even if 2015/16 had them pull away from smaller digital first-party investments in a big way.

But there is a definite reprioritization of the Xbox portfolio now compared to how ambitious they were 4 years ago.

Member

I would love a Perfect Dark 3rd person action/shooter. I think it would work really well. They would need to rewrite the story, especially some characters, but it can for sure work in this day and age. They could get the Coaltition to work on 2 projects. Or just have a smaller team concept and create Gears 5, and work on PD as the next big release with a bigger team. When PD is finished move devs over to Gears 5 and have a smaller core team work on PD2. It would also break up the Gears releases a bit and make the games more spread out.

Member

Here is a question for those in the thread, when was the last time Microsoft genuinely shocked you or the press felt it too in a real positive sense with a new gaming announcement ? Gears of War for 360 was the last time for me.

Banned

Here is a question for those in the thread, when was the last time Microsoft genuinely shocked you or the press felt it too in a real positive sense with a new gaming announcement ? Gears of War for 360 was the last time for me.

I thought their E3 2013 was really good. Especially the part when Phil talks about how Master Chief and Marcus Fenix helped define the previous generations and the need for new heroes to take their place. Then he goes ahead and announces Microsoft is investing in 5 brand new studios working on blockbuster franchises. Then shows off the first trailer for one of those new studios projects. A new IP running in engine, from a new large studio based in Vancouver, Black Tusk. https://youtu.be/fSXicnwHgss?t=4522

Then none of that ever happened.

And now here we all are, almost four years later, still hoping Phil says something along those exact words this E3.

Member

Well you want to make your mind up with what argument you are trying to make. We were talking about Microsoft's 1st party output, which is the topic of the thread. Naturally then, the only fair comparison to make is Sony's actual output too. If you want to add further qualifiers in order to support your argument then clearly it's not a very good one.

Microsoft have plenty of room to improve we all know this, but it isn't going to happen overnight. This gen they have been releasing about 4 big games a year, plus one or two smaller things, I'm not seeing Sony do much more, if at all. If you add all the 3rd party games then sure, they have more exclusives. But that isn't a fair comparison of platform holder output.

I usually just lurk in this thread but come on, if you're going to make claims like this you should really, you know, check to see if you're right or laughably wrong. Sony released 11 games last year (17 if you include VR games and 20 if you include re-releases/remasters on top of that), Microsoft released 5 (7 if you include KI S3 and the Ori re-release).

How long is it going to take you to notice Microsoft's been releasing less and less games every year since the Xbox One launched?

Member

I thought their E3 2013 was really good. Especially the part when Phil talks about how Master Chief and Marcus Fenix helped define the previous generations and the need for new heroes to take their place. Then he goes ahead and announces Microsoft is investing in 5 brand new studios working on blockbuster franchises. Then shows off the first trailer for one of those new studios projects. A new IP running in engine, from a new large studio based in Vancouver, Black Tusk. https://youtu.be/fSXicnwHgss?t=4522

Then none of that ever happened.

And now here we all are, almost four years later, still hoping Phil says something along those exact words this E3.

"This generation, we're investing in five brand-new studios to create blockbuster titles for Xbox". Interesting. By that I assume he meant actually building five brand new studios, whatever happened to that? Black Tusk/The Coalition was obviously one of them but was there any word on the others?

Member

"This generation, we're investing in five brand-new studios to create blockbuster titles for Xbox". Interesting. By that I assume he meant actually building five brand new studios, whatever happened to that? Black Tusk/The Coalition was obviously one of them but was there any word on the others?

To be quite honest, part of the things he's saying is probably exaggeration because the other new studios that MS had set-up in that time frame weren't blockbuster studios, it's likely the other 3 are:

x. Lift London -> no game released yet, working on cross-platform mobile/tablet/PC/Xbox games.
x. Team Dakota -> internal team that worked on Project Spark, team is disbanded.
x. Decisive Games -> team that was set-up to work on strategy games, apparently disbanded.

To be quite honest, part of the things he's saying is probably exaggeration because the other new studios that MS had set-up in that time frame weren't blockbuster studios, it's likely the other 3 are:

x. Lift London -> no game released yet, working on cross-platform mobile/tablet/PC/Xbox games.
x. Team Dakota -> internal team that worked on Project Spark, team is disbanded.
x. Decisive Games -> team that was set-up to work on strategy games, apparently disbanded.

Yeesh. I guess the issue is that if there are secret studios plugging away at new IP's somewhere in the Microsoft Studios family, then surely we would have heard rumours etc. by now? Doesn't fill me with much confidence but we'll see.

Member

Yeesh. I guess the issue is that if there are secret studios plugging away at new IP's somewhere in the Microsoft Studios family, then surely we would have heard rumours etc. by now? Doesn't fill me with much confidence but we'll see.

Banned

Yeah, unless MS is literally building their development schedules to avoid E3 leaks, it's pretty unlikely they have much in the way of top-secret AAA studios. Any surprise 1st party titles from unknown studios are likely to be closer to ReCore in scale.

Member

Well you want to make your mind up with what argument you are trying to make. We were talking about Microsoft's 1st party output, which is the topic of the thread. Naturally then, the only fair comparison to make is Sony's actual output too. If you want to add further qualifiers in order to support your argument then clearly it's not a very good one.

Microsoft have plenty of room to improve we all know this, but it isn't going to happen overnight. This gen they have been releasing about 4 big games a year, plus one or two smaller things, I'm not seeing Sony do much more, if at all. If you add all the 3rd party games then sure, they have more exclusives. But that isn't a fair comparison of platform holder output.

If you want to take PS4's third-party exclusives out of the equation then we might as well also exclude Xbox's third-party exclusives/partnerships, accept that they have no more than 4 games and close this pointless thread.

Don't make me laugh, dude. You're the one who is adding qualifiers and moving goal posts as to what an exclusive game is. And yes it is a fair comparison. It's up to you to shell out the cheese necessary to sign a third-party exclusive if you have to and it's up to you to make your platform more attractive to a wider audience so that the competition doesn't get defacto exclusives that they don't even need to pay for. Or alternatively, it's up to you to have such a strong first-party stable that third-party exclusives become unnecessary. Microsoft is clearly failing hard in every single one of these accounts.

Junior Member

Yeah, unless MS is literally building their development schedules to avoid E3 leaks, it's pretty unlikely they have much in the way of top-secret AAA studios. Any surprise 1st party titles from unknown studios are likely to be closer to ReCore in scale.

If you want to take PS4's third-party exclusives out of the equation then we might as well also exclude Microsoft's third-party exclusives/partnerships, accept that they have no more than 4 games and close this pointless thread.

Don't make me laugh, dude. You're the one who is adding qualifiers and moving goal posts as to what an exclusive game is. And yes it is a fair comparison. It's up to you to shell out the cheese necessary to sign a third-party exclusive if you have to and it's up to you to make your platform more attractive to a wider audience so that the competition doesn't get defacto exclusives that they don't even need to pay for. Or alternatively, it's up to you to have such a strong first-party stable that third-party exclusives become unnecessary. Microsoft is clearly failing hard in every single one of these accounts.